Dawe's poetry is based on life's everyday occurrences. He is a man who vividly outlines his passions in his work. His favourite tool for his poetry is the use of dramatic monologue in which character revelation is far more important than action. Dramatic monologues expose a brief segment of a character's life enabling us to understand the character as fully as possible within the brevity of the incident. Another inherent characteristic of the dramatic monologue is also irony. Almost every dramatic monologue reveals something that the speaker does not intentionally mean to reveal or does not understand about himself. Dramatic monologues also assume the presence of other silent characters which derive their life from the speaker.
             Dawe's use of blank, rhymed or free verse within his monologues create conversational tone and can often relate to the casual nature of the subject he is talking about. This helps him to reflect the Australian care-free attitude of "she'll be right mate". Dawe gets to the very essence of Australian culture and injects his subjects with a small portion of humour that s so typical of the Australian personality.
             His poems draw vivid pictures that give the reader the feel of realism and this is how he shows us his deep passions. Dawe uses colloquial language in his work and the true essence of Australian culture is captured brilliantly.
             Two of Dawe's works in which these techniques are displayed are "Enter Without So Much as Knocking" and "One Jump Ahead"
             In the poem "Enter Without So Much as Knocking" Dawe introduces us to a style of detachment. This detachment extends to the name of the poem in the fact that there is no name but a statistic. The bi-line in Latin reinforces the idea that we are here on this earth as transient beings. The lack of permanence (detachment) to any one or anything.
             Dawe uses a generalisatio...